The present invention relates generally to a cyclone which is capable of separating gaseous products of an electrolytic cell from the electrolyte in a very short period of time such that the electrolyte solution passed on to the next electrolytic cell in a bank of cells will contain very little entrained gaseous products. This in turn reduces significantly the power requirements of cells toward the end of a cell bank. More particularly the present disclosure relates to an improved method for removal of entrained gaseous product from an electrolyte solution as it is being circulated from one electrolytic cell to the next electrolytic cell in a series or bank of electrolytic cells. Such a system consists of a cyclone having a tangential input into a cylindrical top section and central outlet from a conically shaped bottom portion with a baffle contained within the outlet to arrest the circular motion of the liquid.
Electrochemical methods of manufacture are becoming ever increasingly important to the chemical industry due to their greater ecological acceptability, potential for energy conservation, and the resultant cost reductions possible. Some of the reasons advanced for this possible shift in future chemical production include the possible greater restriction upon the travel of dangerous chemical products in the transportation networks of the world thus necessitating onsite manufacture, and the fact that electrolytic cells can generally be operated as a closed system thereby allowing greater control over the escape of by-products or waste products from the electrolytic cell which may be environmentally undesirable. If chemical substances are more severely regulated as it is suspected at this point, smaller on-site generation of many of these chemical substances will be necessary and electrolytic cells provide an excellent means by which such substances can be generated in small quantities economically. Also, many fuels are rising rapidly in price thus making electricity a more economical source for many types of production due to expected exhaustion of fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and to the use of more economical nuclear generation of electricity. The electrolytic cell promises to be one of the most efficient means of utilizing electricity.
One example of the advances in the electrolytic cell technology is the electrolysis of sea water to produce aqueous hypochlorite solution. This type of electrolytic cell utilizes available sea water to obtain chlorine in a useful form for disinfection of municipal waste water fluids and treatment of industrial cooling waters. Usually these cells are connected in series to form a bank of electrolytic cells to produce the concentrations necessary for a given production need. A particular problem of this type of cell is that by the time the electrolyte is circulated to the final cell in a bank of electrolytic cells the entrained hydrogen content of such an electrolyte is very high. This entrained hydrogen has a tendency to build up on the electrodes within the final cell and thus greatly increase the power consumption by raising the potential necessary to transmit a current across the cell.
One way to separate a gaseous substance from the liquid would be to employ gravity settling. The mixture is allowed to stand at rest or move in laminar flow along a path until the bubbles have risen to the surface. The problem with this method has been that the entrained gaseous substances in the electrolyte from an electrolytic cell are of such small bubble size that a very large system and a long period of time would be required to effect separation.
Therefore a need exists presently for a device which can release hydrogen from the electrolyte of an electrolytic cell for the production of hypochlorite at a very rapid rate and with a minimum amount of capital investment.